Marrow (26 page)

“Once I knew Spine was watching, I took control of Nero and threatened your life. It helped that Nero was snooping around in places that he shouldn’t have been. Alas, that plan nearly backfired on me when that pathetic little parasite tried communicating to you using his telekinesis as Morse code. I only barely caught him before he could rat me out. Fortunately, I had been planning to frame Oracle for quite some time. All that spying, working endlessly to get inside her head… It was totally on the fly when I had Nero say her name instead of mine. It was rushing ahead of my intended schedule, but I have to say, it couldn’t have worked better. Oracle was the perfect scapegoat, using you and Flex as bait to lure Spine out directly. I’ll be honest. Beating your dad’s head into the ground was the happiest moment of my life.” Fantom rolled his eyes up, his mouth splitting into a sadistic grin of euphoric bliss. “I’ve been waiting to do that for years.”

I had been completely numb until this point. A tear burned down my cheek like acid. I glanced down to find my hands squeezed into fists and shaking. Electricity surged through my veins. Making my bones light, I screamed and flew forward. My fist exploded with the force and precision of a missile.

My momentum came to a jarring halt. A dozen invisible hands gripped me, inside and out. I hung hopelessly in the air, gasping, barely able to breathe.

I wasn’t done yet. I extended my fingers out and pushed the density hard into my fingertips. Twelve-inch bone spikes ripped beneath my fingernails, glistening in a thin layer of mucus. The tip of my middle finger spike barely grazed Fantom’s throat, drawing blood.

“Son of a bean-dipped mother Frito!” said Fantom. He staggered back and grabbed his neck. He pulled his hand away, revealing a small dab of crimson. “Picking a fight with the most powerful Omnipotent in the world, eh? You’ve got guts, Marrow. I’ll give you that. Unfortunately, guts can be spilled.”

Fantom reached his arm forward, twisting his curled fingers.

My insides were suddenly gripped in a vice—twisting, crushing. I gagged and coughed, spitting blood.

“Marrow!” said Flex. The moment he moved towards me, Fantom raised a hand. Flex went rigid. He contorted like a dying insect. His face pinched, and he screamed through his teeth. “
Urrrrrrgh!
”

Fantom quickly flicked his fingers open, thrusting both palms forward. Flex and I flew backward, crashing into the drywall which cracked and caved around us. The tension on my insides was released, however, which was all I cared about at the moment. We remained telekinetically glued to the wall as Fantom approached.

“You certainly have your father’s fighting spirit, Marrow,” he said. “Still throwing punches, even when the fight’s already over. I like that.”

“How can you even pretend to be a hero?” I said. “You’re more evil than the fake villains you’re defeating!”

“Ah, you see, that’s where you and I would have to disagree. Do you remember what I told you the other day? About standing as a symbol for goodness and justice? I actually believe that. I believe that I
am
that symbol.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“No, I really do,” said Fantom. His expression was disturbingly sincere. “You don’t know the numbers like I do. When you eliminate all the staged crimes that I’m responsible for, Cosmo City actually has the lowest crime rate of any major city in the world. Criminals in Cosmo City are
afraid
to commit crimes because of me. And hey, who can blame ‘em? I’ve created a utopia where evil is always defeated and good always prevails.”

“Yeah, except that makes you the biggest criminal in Cosmo City,” said Flex. “You’re no better than some lousy, mafia warlord. Just because you control the crime doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

“Flex, Flex…” said Fantom, shaking his head. “You understand so little. Comparing me to a syndicate leader is like comparing God to an annoying televangelist. I don’t need men or guns to get what I want. I don’t need the law to tell me what to do. I
am
the law. I was chosen for this.”

“Chosen,” I said. “Wow. Have delusions of grandeur much?”

“You don’t believe me?” asked Fantom, raising a challenging eyebrow. “You know, I’m surprised, Marrow. You haven’t even asked how I became so powerful to begin with.”

Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about that. But the way he was bringing it up now, he made it sound like there was some big secret to it.

“What does that matter?” I asked.

“Oh, it matters,” said Fantom, his countenance darkening. “In fact, everything centers on it.”

“Oh really?” I said skeptically.

“What if I told you that there’s something living inside of me?”

“Inside of you?” My skepticism upped a notch.

“Would you like to meet it?”

This conversation had just gone from crazy to cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

“It normally speaks directly to my mind,” said Fantom. “But it loves when I let it out every once in a while.”

Fantom closed his eyes.

This was ridiculous. I didn’t know what kind of joke this was supposed to be, but I didn’t want to stick around for it. I struggled against the invisible force securing me to the wall. Even without Fantom paying any attention to me, I couldn’t budge.

Not that it mattered. The moment Fantom opened his eyes, I went rigid.

His eyes were glowing neon green. Not just his irises. Everything. His pupils, the whites of his eyes—gone. Swallowed in green energy and pulsating with concentrated power.

I had seen those eyes before—the same eyes from my brief mental breakdown on the Tartarus elevator. The same ones that were now haunting me in my dreams.

“Hello, Marrow,” said a new voice—a conglomeration of synchronized voices of various pitches and tones. Emotionless. Soulless. Like a choir of the undead. “I told you Brother wanted to kill you.”

Fantom blinked and his eyes were human again.

“Now, now,” said Fantom. “What have I told you about revealing my evil plots to strangers, Gaia?”

Gaia? No. That was impossible.

“Sweet, merciful mother of crap,” said Flex. “I did
not
see that coming.”

Fantom blinked again, flooding his eyes with neon green energy once more. “Their minds are shielded, Brother. Why can’t we see inside of them?”

He blinked again.

“Just be patient, Gaia,” said Fantom. “We’ll be able to get in soon enough. If we got inside Oracle, we can hack our way into any brain. You were able to communicate to his mind on the Tartarus after all.”

“Gaia…” I said in shock. “You…you can talk to the comet?”

“Not the comet itself,” said Fantom. “The mind of the comet. The spirit of the comet, I suppose you could say. Gaia is a bodiless symbiotic alien life form whose life’s essence is connected to the comet. It is the energy of Gaia’s life force that continually gives birth to Supers.”

“And you can talk to it?” I repeated.

“In a manner of speaking. Gaia’s mind is attached to my mind.”

“H-h-h-how?” Flex sputtered. “How is that even possible?”

“Ah, Flex,” said Fantom, shaking his head. “Don’t you know my legend? A young child is sailing on a boat in the ocean with his parents. The Gaia Comet strikes, killing his mother and father instantly, but the boy survives— and emerges as the most powerful Super of all time.”

Fantom paused, chuckling to himself, as if he were about to let me in on the greatest joke of the century.

“What if I told you that I
did
die?”

Worst joke ever.

“I died, but Gaia brought me back to life,” said Fantom. “Melded together with my mind. But this isn’t your average Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Gaia agrees with everything I think. Feels everything that I feel. And supplies me with a considerable amount of power to do what I need to do. You could almost say that we are one in the same being.”

Fantom blinked, and his eyes were glowing neon green again.

“Do they know our plans?” said Gaia in his haunting symphony of voices. “Do they know how we get our powers, Brother?”

“How you
get
your powers?” said Flex. “But I thought—”

Fantom blinked again, taking control. “—that my power comes from Gaia,” he said, finishing my thought. “And it does. When Gaia melded with my mind, my telepathic and telekinetic powers increased exponentially. But that only scratches the surface of our capabilities. You see, with Gaia and I combined…we can
absorb
the power of other Telepaths and Telekinetics.”

“What?” I said. “But how?”

“Well, I can’t explain the science of it to you,” said Fantom. “What I
can
tell you is that we can telepathically delve into such a Super’s mind and rip the power right out of his or her brain. When that happens, the power naturally fuses with Gaia and me. That’s the other reason that I was so keen on interfering with your Final Challenge and letting Nero win. Taunting Spine with your loss was appealing in theory, but I also
really
wanted Nero’s power. It’s not every day that you come across such strong, fresh telekinetic energy.”

“You stole Nero’s power?”

“Ripped it right out of his smug little brain right after he tried to rat me out to you and your friends.”

I couldn’t believe it. Nero was not only comatose, but he was powerless. Everything he had worked for—gone. I couldn’t feel any of the resentment I used to have for him. I only felt sick.

“But that was just a little something to tide me over,” said Fantom. “Even collecting Oracle’s power—which is immense, I might add—is small in comparison to the true fruit of my reckoning.”

I didn’t want to ask. So naturally, I did. “What’s that?”

“The Cronus Order,” said Fantom. “The largest gathering of Telepaths the world has ever known. Like Nero, my reason for using Oracle had dual purposes. Can you imagine? All that power in one location.”

“But…their powers were just taken by the Cronus,” I protested.

“The first batch, yes,” said Fantom. The corners of his lips twitched, fighting another sadistic smile. “Well…supposing that the Cronus works like I said it does.”

Oh no. This was bad. This was really bad. As if the Cronus Order wasn’t horrible enough on its own…

“What do you mean? What does the Cronus really do?”

“Oh, it takes their powers alright,” said Fantom. “However, it’s not so much a machine as it is…oh, what’s the word? An
amplifier
? You see, below the Cronus, there is a centralized compartment cell designed specifically for me. The Cronus only works if Gaia and I are powering it with our cerebral energy. And when that happens…”

The chamber beneath the Tartarus! Oh crap. Oh crap crap crap crap crap.

“You steal their power,” said Flex.

“Like candy from a baby,” said Fantom. “And baby, it’s Halloween. Nero actually found the compartment cell, the little snoop. That’s when I decided to revoke his brain privileges permanently.”

“And Whisp,” I said. “You stole his power too?”

“The animal whisperer? Funny you should mention him. I actually made a
special
effort to target him and secure his power. Oh boy, do I have plans for that power!”

I didn’t even want to know. I was slightly more terrified about the rest of the power he was absorbing.

“Top that off with Oracle’s vast power and the telepathic energy of over a hundred other Telepaths…” Fantom breathed in and sighed blissfully. “Have you ever tried on glasses or contact lenses for the first time? Well…I haven’t. But I’d imagine it’d feel similar to this—on steroids and multiplied by a billion. And hey, that’s just the appetizer. While the Cronus Order is still in effect, there are still thousands of more minds to come. And believe me, I intend to absorb every telepathic mind in existence.”

Fantom yawned, interlocking his fingers and stretching them behind his head. He turned to glance at a clock hanging on the wall and shook his head.

“Oh, would you look at me,” he said. “Monologuing again. I apologize about that. You have no idea how maddening it is to have a perfect plan like this and not be able to share it with anyone. And here we are now. You two know everything, and now I have to kill you. I was really hoping to somehow break past these mental barriers of yours, but the more I think about it, the more impractical it seems. Even with all my new power, it could take weeks for me to penetrate them. Maybe longer. And I obviously can’t keep you quiet for that long without arousing suspicions. Such a shame too. Marrow, you would have made the perfect follow-up villain to Spine. You have the motive, the power, the tainted reputation… everything. It would have been beautiful. Poetic, even.”

Fantom pulled his gaze from me, focusing instead on white-eyed Sapphire who hadn’t budged.

“But alas…I’ll just have to settle for your girlfriend, you, and Flex killing each other in a Mexican standoff. I’m sure the police will concoct their own viable motive. They always do.”

Even telepathically pinned to the wall, my body tensed.